


Memories in Gold

by Canadiantardis



Series: Cana's Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Light Angst, One Shot, Other Paladins only mentioned, Past Character Death, Pidge and Lance have an interesting relationship, This is a bad timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23307004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canadiantardis/pseuds/Canadiantardis
Summary: Katie remembers when she had been free. When she had an older brother, a mother and a father, a dog, friends, and a position of importance, a symbol of freedom and rebellion. Well, growing up to eventually have that position.She had been twelve when the Galra flipped everything on its head.
Relationships: Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt
Series: Cana's Bad Things Happen Bingo [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674190
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Memories in Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rueitae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rueitae/gifts).



> Rue requested Gilded Cage with Plance  
> This was really fun to write~ Enjoy yall!

Katie remembers when she had been free. When she had an older brother, a mother and a father, a dog, friends, and a position of importance, a symbol of freedom and rebellion. Well, growing up to eventually have that position.

She had been twelve when the Galra flipped everything on its head.

Her brother, Matt, had tried to save her. Take her in the Green Lion and escape Earth, but soldiers found them before they could get into the robot lion. It only stared at the situation impassively, glass-eyes dead and shield up. Katie continued to wonder, to this day, if it had known the futility of trying to escape.

She shook her head, banishing the thought from her mind. Nothing good came of regrets years and years after the fact. She saw what it did to the others older than her, when they were allowed out of their rooms. Their faces stuck on frowns, dead eyes that held no warmth, smiles that looked empty.

Matt had been killed in front of her, but Katie knew he would want her to fight, to not give up, no matter what horrors awaited. Even if it wasn’t much, Katie refused to allow her small spark, her rare smile, to die along with him. She only had a few more years before the Galra would judge her allegiance to the Emperor, and then she would have the Green Lion.

_The long con,_ her father’s voice whispered in her head, as she stared at the ceiling of her room.

It was… nice, she guessed. Soft, lavish maybe. A big, big bed for herself and Lance, one of the only other humans even close to her age, her ‘pre-determined mate,’ and the next Blue Pilot. The floor was padded with plush carpeting, a softer silver coloured walls compared to the dull steel of the rest of the ship, and items both she and Lance had been given as rewards over the years.

Lance’s rewards seemed to revolve around the water, a fancy-looking fish tank and gorgeous, brilliantly coloured fish he took care of to pass the time, mostly, when he wasn’t helping Katie or when they weren’t forced out of their room to be shown off to some poor prisoner. A shark-like tooth from a planet here, a mermaid scale there, books on the aquatic planets written in Galran, and there had been talk of making a small swimming pool for the Pilots to keep them in shape because Lance had mentioned it in passing.

Katie’s rewards varied. She had a few electronics, closed circuit so she could not attempt anything against their… Katie was never sure what the Galra were to them. Were they only prisoners, or were they slaves or some kind of pet? Were they future Galra soldiers, so was Lance and she to see them as their leaders, commanders, captains? She never had been given an answer, but she had never asked, so that was to be expected.

She had a couple small plants that she took care of, with Lance's help because her green thumb wasn't as good as her mom's. They were closer to succulents or desert-found plants, which reminded her constantly that if such plants could survive in dry, hard environments, then she and the other human Pilots could as well.

She also had a fair amount of books, in all kinds of languages, that ranged from dictionaries (mainly Galra to another alien planet’s main language) to non-fiction historical narrations to high fantasy of make-believe lands and all kinds of creatures that could potentially be real on another planet light years from the homeplanet that wrote the book. Katie enjoyed all the books she was given, as it gave both of them something to do for those long, long hours of absolutely nothing happening. They would spend hours reading to one another, their voices the only sound outside any shuffling they may make as they settle into storytime. If Katie was ever given a novel from a new planet, she would have to decipher the language before she could teach Lance, and then they would read it together.

It saddened her that they could not speak to the natives of the planets the Galra took control of. She wanted so badly to hear the original languages, the native tongue speak it, but the only time she would ever see any, they would be prisoners and she would be the trophy of ‘how all resistance was foolish, for Voltron is Galra.’

Lance shifted with a grunt, and an arm rested over Katie’s waist. She turned to look at him. Lance was only a year or two older than her, and almost a full head taller than her even after her growth spurt. He had said plenty of times, the first years they were ‘matched’ together, that he was big on family, but had been originally completely against the Galra’s decision to forcibly pair people up. He had been a scraggly teen back then, barely fifteen with a cracking voice and gangly limbs from a recent spurt. Now, at almost twenty-one, he filled into those long limbs, and his voice was soft and sweet, a nice timbre that soothed any of Katie’s worries when he spoke or read one of her books to her.

Like Katie, however, Lance had suffered the loss of his own family during the invasion. He spoke often of his older sister, Veronica, the former Blue Pilot. How she had the same idea as Matt, but they had almost gotten away, if not for the tractor beam. They had been starved out of the Lion, the two camping out in it’s head for a solid month before the rations were gone, and all escape attempts were thwarted. Lance was lucky not to see his sister’s execution.

Katie watched Lance sleep for a couple more minutes before she sighed, turning back to stare at the ceiling. She knew they had not been lucky to be spared, they were simply seen as more malleable to follow the orders of the Galra and Emperor Zarkon, since they had been taken at the ages of twelve and almost fourteen. It wasn’t hard to understand the way they were paraded around like some strange cross of prisoner and pet, of soldier and slave, gloated over every time a particularly important prisoner needed to be broken. Try as she might, Katie could not ignore the truth. It did make holding onto her spark, her smile, that much harder, but she was not a quitter. She, and Lance as well, were not people to lay down and roll over.

Lance had a laugh that sparked any other prisoner who heard. He worked hard to make sure the people he was around - aside from the guards or Galra who would sooner flog him for speaking out of turn than allow him to crack a smile or sound even slightly amused - could feel relaxed, and as happy as they could get in their situation. He would ask all kinds of questions when Katie had new wires to tinker with, wanting to understand what she was doing, what he could do to help even if that meant holding something for her and keep silent so she could work without distractions. He would read to her when the oppressive weight of their situation got too much for her, or when she was feeling ill - she always had a terrible immune system, no matter what the doctors tried to ‘fix’ her - or when she was tired.

She sat up carefully, gingerly picking up Lance’s arm and moving it away from her so she could get up. They had nothing to do today. Not a surprise, that was the majority of their days, unless something happened out of the blue and they would be needed, or moved until a raid was dealt with, or some other sudden surprise. It just bugged her that they were not scheduled to see the other important prisoners or pets or Voltron Pilots for another week. She wished to speak with them. While she loved not being alone like she knew the half-human Red Pilot - Kodak? Keith? She wasn’t sure what his name was - was, being around the other humans that were captured and kept in as cushy locked rooms as her and Lance, simply made her feel like, maybe, just maybe, things would be okay.

She looked around the room, but everything was always the same. There was no window, the door blended with the wall almost seamlessly, it was impossible to find a way out - she tried, in the early years.

With a sigh, she got out of bed, going towards the little sectioned-off area where the ‘bathroom’ was. It wasn’t much of a bathroom. A sink-toilet combination, with a straight-down shower next to it. At least the water was lukewarm most of the time, and not arctic cold like it had been in the beginning. It was the little things that kept Katie’s spirits up.

After all, that was all that could keep her going, at least until she found a sure-fire way to get out. She was sure the other Pilots had the same thought of escape and retaliating against their captors. It did not matter they were not tortured, or forced to compete in the Arena, or how lucky they were to have even an ounce of identity to themselves. Katie could not let her brother’s death, or Veronica’s death, or the other former Pilots’ deaths, be for nothing, for them all to betray them in the worst ways. Long con was right.

It did not help with the boredom and inability to do much more than sit and stew, and Katie had another couple years before she could really do anything concrete.

As she finished washing her hands, she heard Lance mumble something incoherent, and when she stepped out from the tiny bathroom, she saw him sit up, arms stretching over his head as he yawned awake.

“G’mornin.” He mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with a knuckle, smiling sleepily at her.

“Hey.” She greeted in response, padding barefoot - she had thin slipper-shoes only when they had to leave the room - back to bed to sit on the end, tucking her legs under her. “Sleep well?”

“Kinda. Had that dream again. I think the Lions are starting to wake up again.”

Katie blinked, furrowing her brows. Lance had spoken about the Lions before, the last time he had a vivid and recurring dream, and apparently, the last time either had spoken to the other Pilots, they had also had a dream similar to Lance’s. All except Katie.

It seemed to be a dialogue between the Pilots and the Lions. The talks may be different to each person, but the place was the exact same. A blank, black void, with only two pinpricks of light: one resting on the Lion; and the other resting on the Pilot a good several feet away.

Lance believed Katie would get her dreams once she was old enough, and as the youngest Voltron Pilot, it would mean things would begin to change.

“What did you talk about this time?” She asked to ignore her buzzing thoughts.

“My family, I think.” He frowned, crossing his legs under the blanket he was still using. “We kept talking about all my ancestors, who all piloted it, and then the aliens who first took up the mantle of Voltron Pilot. I didn’t even know there were so many generations of my family to have been a part of Voltron.”

Katie hummed. She remembered stories Matt would tell her, of some great-great-grandparent who had piloted Green and kept Earth safe for decades, but never knew how many generations this spanned.

“It’s so weird.” Lance continued, his tone soft and his expression faraway. “We talked about Veronica. I think… I think Blue also misses her as much as I do.”

“That’s not that weird. The Lions are supposed to be sentient and stuff, right?” Lance nodded. “I hope Green misses Matt as much as I do. Even if it had locked up before we could get to safety.” Her words tasted bitter in her mouth.

“I think it does. Your brother had been its Pilot for half a decade, right? It had to have missed him. Blue seemed to miss everyone who it had had.” He shrugged, shifting to settle more comfortably. “But maybe that’s just Blue. It seems more friendly compared to the other Lions we’ve heard about.”

“Maybe.” Katie echoed softly, looking down at her lap.

She felt Lance’s hand touch her shoulder gently, the contact sending more than just warmth. While they both were originally against what was essentially an arranged marriage, both had genuine care and love for the other, but Katie wasn’t sure how much had come from chance, and how much was because they only had each other day-to-day. She stopped questioning herself on that train of thought, finding it only led nowhere good.

“Come on, it should be about time for dinner to be brought in. Let’s get in a chapter of that book you got today before then, yeah?” He gave her his kind smile, one he only gave when it was the two of them. It was soft, and made him look younger since it smoothed any of the worry-lines and pinched brows that was common for all the upcoming Pilots, Katie found.

She leant into the touch, looking at the secret smile only she ever saw and her lips twisted into a ghost of a smile, and she nodded. “Sounds great.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [ LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:  
> Feedback
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> This author replies to comments.


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